


Love in a Goddamn Cave (And Other Shit Everyone Puts Up With)

by Medie



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, meant to be a drabble oops, winteriron
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-16
Updated: 2016-06-16
Packaged: 2018-07-15 09:16:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7216546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/pseuds/Medie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein everything goes to hell, but hey, they kind of get better too and that's pretty much the story for both Bucky and Tony, right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love in a Goddamn Cave (And Other Shit Everyone Puts Up With)

**Author's Note:**

> because an anon [prompted me](http://medieisme.tumblr.com/post/145960931462/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) for winteriron for #20 - “You need to wake up because I can’t do this without you.”

Tony's not sure how long, maybe six weeks, into Afghanistan, when they get a new roomie. "Oh joy," he drawls to Yinsen, when they dump the leatherbound monstrosity in the room, "fresh meat."

Yinsen doesn't answer him, doesn't get a chance, their hosts are snapping something at him that Tony can't understand, but can guess at. He keeps working, can't risk giving anything away, and waits until the door slam shut again.

Whoever the newbie is, he's huge and he's hurt, and Tony doesn't wait for Yinsen to ask. He helps the doc move the guy. He's beat to hell, shot up in places, and Tony remembers the shouting of earlier. There's a mystery there, maybe, but not much of one. If they got into a firefight with this guy, but want Yinsen to save him, then this guy's worth something to somebody.

The time it takes to solve that one is exactly the time it takes to get his mask off. Just as soon as Tony gets a look at the newbie's face, he understands way too fucking much and they are about fifteen different kinds of ass-fucked.

"Fuck." He all but scuttles backward. "That's Barnes."

He's heard every single fucking one of Howard's Howling Commando stories. Every single one (not that many, really, since dear old dad hadn't gone into the front with the like Aunt Peggy had) until he could pretty much parrot right along with him word for word. There's zero chance he's not going to recognize Cap's best friend and that's without taking in the childhood crush he'd had on the dude.

"Help me with his gear," Yinsen says, ignoring his dramatics. "I can't get at the wounds as long as he's wearing them."

Tony does as told, taking in the sight of the gleaming metal arm as he does, and starts to consider hyperventilating a little. Barnes shouldn't have survived the fall off the train. No normal human being would. He knows that Barnes never went through Rebirth, but maybe Hydra'd managed to reconstitute the version used on Red Skull. Barnes had never really been able to tell them what Zola had done to him in that camp.

Either way, it seems pretty damn obvious to Tony that Barnes has a version of the serum and they're going to have hell raining down on them before long. He doesn't know, precisely, who's been holding Barnes' leash these past seventy years, but someone has. No fucking way Barnes would go dark for a week, much less decades, when the old man had been turning the world over looking for Steve.

It's somewhere around there that Yinsen notices his reaction. "You know this man?"

"Yeah," he says. "Kind of and we'd better move up the plan. Somebody's going to come looking for this guy and no chance in hell we let them find him."

Which, okay, not really part of the plan, but Tony's always been freakishly flexible and why not rehabilitate the world's oldest POW in the middle of busting out of a terrorist camp in the Afghan mountains?

Besides, that's the bitch of it, after a few days, Barnes does most of the work himself. Tony spends his days either working on the suit or on Bucky's arm (because when you're groping up a guy's arm, you should probably be on a first name basis) while Bucky talks through the worst of it with Yinsen who deserves way better than being stuck in here with them. Tony occasionally provides colour commentary on the whole thing in the form of many, many four letter words and the odd 'you have got to be fucking kidding me' thrown in to make him grin.

Because it does. Every time he mutters it, just loud enough to be heard of course, Bucky ducks his head and grins. Which, hey, Tony will swear the goddamn rocks down on their heads if it keeps the guy smiling like that.

And it helps. He knows that one from experience. Every time Rhodey had muttered 'that is such fucking bullshit' to one of his dear old dad stories had been like the proverbial balm to the wounds or whatever. It just helps and it's not much, but hey, it's enough for now.

Well, that and promises of a new arm. "Seriously," he sniffs, "this thing might've been a miracle of engineering in Mother Russia, but a few hours in the lab and it'll be yesterday's news."

Bucky looks over at him with that grin again and Tony starts thinking maybe his childhood crush isn't so much of a childhood thing anymore. Typical. Why not complicate things even more than they already are.

"It gonna glow like that thing?" Bucky asks, nodding at the arc reactor. "Probably make it easier going to the can at night."

Tony snorts. "Keep that up and I'll make it play God Bless America every time you jerk off."

Which ventures just a little too close to the subject of Steve Rogers than he meant to go, but it's out, Bucky's snickering, and there's too many personal landmines in this room already and it's not even a room, it's a goddamn _cave_.

"We are getting the fuck out of here," he mutters, giving Bucky's arm a pat and going back to the suit. "We are getting the fuck out of here and going the fuck home. I am going to eat a cheeseburger, you are going to have fifty of them, and you--" he points at Yinsen. "I don't know if you like cheeseburgers, but I am going to buy you fifty of whatever you want."

Yinsen smiles that sad little smile of his and doesn't answer. Deep down, Tony maybe knows why and he'll hate himself for this someday, but his brain doesn't let him go there. He can't think of it now. Not with the door and a few dozen terrorists between them and freedom.

There is zero chance, with what they have, that the suit will be able to carry the weight of them all. He compensates by building Bucky his very own jetpack and, fuck, the smile he gets for _that_? He'll building the guy rocket boots the very second they get home.

Except then it all goes to hell. They run out of time. Lose Yinsen busting out. Then there's the desert. The desert with no water, no supplies, and nobody looking for them. 

Nobody but Rhodey.

He's barely let himself think about what might've happened to Rhodey because if he didn't think it, then it didn't happen and Rhodey's okay. Which, hey, maybe there's something to that idea since one second he and Bucky are stumbling through the sand and the next there's Rhodey and hugging and, yeah, he'll never, ever live down the fun-vee, but they're alive and, oh yeah, he grins at Rhodey and throws an arm around Bucky's neck. "Funny thing happened on the way to the airport." 

Rhodey just looks at him, laughs, and Tony can pinpoint the second he recognizes Bucky's face. "How the fuck--"

"Long story. Long, long story, but first home, then cheeseburgers, and oh yeah, new arm." He points at Bucky's arm. "He wants to pee by himself in the dark."

He maybe passes out around there, but it's to the sound to Bucky chuckling and Rhodey's horrified groan.

Life is good. 

At least, until they get home and everything goes to hell. Like, it's okay at first. Bucky stays out of sight for the press stuff (no need to advertise to Hydra where he is) and for the SI stuff (man's been a POW for seventy years, he's suffered enough), so they mostly have the house to themselves while Pepper gets people working on the legal stuff and handles the worst of the fallout from shutting down the weapons division. Tony gives her a raise, a car, and a promise to not get kidnapped again for at least six months. 

He's reasonably sure he can keep that one too. With the suit and Bucky's new arm to work on, they manage to stay out of trouble for a whole month or two. Ish. 

But then he finds out what Obie did. Then he goes back to Afghanistan, in the suit, with Bucky in full gear, and they maybe spend some time wrecking the Ten Rings. Maybe. Totally. 

It feels fucking fantastic and, technically, they don't even get kidnapped, so he has broken no promise here.

He's pretty sure he still hasn't broken any promises when it's two days later and Obie rips the arc reactor out of his chest.

Tony doesn't know how long he's been down, if he passed out, but he must have, because he wakes up to Bucky slurring, "You need to wake up because I can’t do this without you" and, of course Obie fucked him up too. Of _course_ he did. Bucky's arm looks charred and his face isn't much better and Tony is probably on the verge of a panic attack right now...

But then Bucky's hand, the flesh and blood one, is cupping the back of Tony's head, lifting him up and he looks so goddamn terrified that Tony reaches for him, tries to pull him closer, and god, he wishes he could be kissing him right now.

Bucky grins. "Maybe later. Gotta do something about the part where you're dying right now." 

Which, okay, sure, live then kiss, then they go and kick Obie's goddamn ass. 

"Live, kiss, kick ass." Tony grins. "Square deal."


End file.
